[mythtv-users] minimum CPU requirements for PVR-250

[Torsten Schenkel]

Am Mo, den 05.01.2004 schrieb Andy Skinn um 00:05:
> >Exchange the 250 for a 350. Then you have en-/decoding on
> one
> >card. The driver is mature enough by now. 
> 
> That's fine... but I've still heard that the PVR-350 won't
> be good enough for my Cyrix 233Mhz machine.  I thought at
> first it would be since it does both encoding and decoding,
> but the opinion of others is that it wouldn't be enough.
> 
> If anyone can either confirm/disprove this, let me know.

I cannot definitely say that it is enough. But if it isn't nothing will
be.

I have an Epia 600MHz which in overall performance might be along the
P3-450 line and I have <=12% CPU during liveTV. Most of this is I/O and
SQL queries and such. Given that numbers your 233 should be more than
enough. Don't be fooled by the numbers on the package. Those are for
windows, and Win doesn't make use of the decoder and TV-out.

The only thing that might be a problem is DMA bandwidth. If your old
board doesn't have DMA then there is a problem. Make sure it's a
busmastering PCI slot on there. But this applies to the PVR250 as well.
As to any other grabber card I know of.   

> I'm also still curious if a 233Mhz machine is good enough
> with a PVR-250 as a backend only and then streaming to my
> other computer.

If it can do that (DMA busmastering capability is needed) then it can do
the output as well (using a pvr350).

HTH,

Torsten
-- 
Walkthrough: MythTV on Epia with PVR350 using Debian:
http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough